So many times in life I feel that my circumstances are the problem. I look at the cards that have been dealt to me and I’m filled with frustrations. I get so caught up in my circumstances simply looking at what I do or don’t have, and I’m doubting whether God truly loves ...
“Because Jesus was extraordinary, I’m free to be ordinary.” We all want to be somebody. We all want to be known for something special. We want to be known as the athlete, the singer, the one who is really attractive, the one who has memorized tons of scripture, or the ...
For all of us on the journey with Christ, there is a tension that dominates our lives. We live in the “already but not yet,” seeing some of the glories of the Kingdom of God while walking in a sin-soaked world. We have tasted of the heavenly, yet are surrounded by the worldly. Our ...
A thirst for success haunts all of us. This is true because a longing for significance dominates our culture. We all are driven toward living lives that count. Many of us have lengthy track records that point toward attempts at worldly success. We’ve poured in time, resources, and ...
“You are what you celebrate,” the saying goes. It’s one of my favorite sayings, and one of the most profound. Many times these days, we will talk about cultures around the world. We might also talk about sub-cultures within our own context. Each person has a culture, each entity ...
Our family is passionate about South Sudan. Much of that comes from the fact that Shauna and I used to live there, and our mud hut days have driven in us a deep love for the people there. Our kids naturally pick that up, to the point where Allison used to think that the country that she lived in ...
It was a terribly hot day in South Sudan, and I was thirsty. So was Shauna, and the rest of our village. In fact, our thirst paled in comparison to theirs, because we at least had some water. It was bee-ridden by that point, with the bees flocking to the only water they could find, but we at least ...
It’s a striking thing to me that our lives are based on what happened two thousand years ago. One event, culminating in a myriad of other events, has wrecked us today. We have staked all we have on that event, and that story. Our very eternity has been altered because of it. Yet what is so ...
One thing about conversations with four-year-olds is that you never know how they will go. They are generally guaranteed to be interesting, and likely amusing. I’ve found this particularly to be the case regarding prayer, at least with our son, Timothy. Timothy has no clue of what ...
It was 8 am last Saturday morning, and the crowd was gathering. It was moving day at the Swann home and our Hope family was coming out. Shortly there were men and women everywhere, moving and cleaning and blessing us in every way. By noon the work was done, with the world’s greatest moving ...
